Why RLS protects sensitive data in Power BI - Formula Trace Breakdown

Sample Data

This table shows employees with their IDs, names, departments, and salaries.

Cell	Value
A1	EmployeeID
B1	Name
C1	Department
D1	Salary
A2	101
B2	Alice
C2	Sales
D2	70000
A3	102
B3	Bob
C3	HR
D3	65000
A4	103
B4	Charlie
C4	Sales
D4	72000
A5	104
B5	Diana
C5	IT
D5	80000

Formula Trace

FILTER(Employee, Employee[Department] = USERPRINCIPALNAME())

Step 1: USERPRINCIPALNAME()

Step 2: Employee[Department] = "Sales"

Step 3: FILTER(Employee, [TRUE, FALSE, TRUE, FALSE])

Cell Reference Map

    A       B       C       D
1 |EmployeeID | Name  | Department  | Salary
2 | 101  | Alice | Sales | 70000 
3 | 102  | Bob   | HR    | 65000 
4 | 103  | Charlie| Sales| 72000 
5 | 104  | Diana | IT    | 80000 

User's department: Sales (used in filter)

The formula uses the Department column to filter rows matching the user's department.

Result

    A       B       C       D
1 |EmployeeID | Name  | Department  | Salary
2 | 101  | Alice | Sales | 70000 
4 | 103  | Charlie| Sales| 72000 

The filtered table shows only employees from the Sales department, hiding others.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does USERPRINCIPALNAME() return in this example?

A "Alice"

B "Sales"

C "HR"

D "70000"

Key Result

FILTER(table, table[column] = USERPRINCIPALNAME()) filters rows to show only data matching the current user.